There is a specific kind of atmospheric pressure that descends in December, and with Mick J. Clark dropping his single "It's Christmas Party Time ", the barometer just shattered. Clark isn’t exactly a stranger to the heavy machinery of the music industry what with his major publishing ties and that serious brush with the Grammy conversation for his album Causes but here, he isn’t...

Dylan Forshner's new EP, “Hopeless Optimism,” presents itself not so much as a collection of songs but as a series of candid diary entries set to intricately picked acoustic strings. This five-song journey from the Welland, Canada artist begins in a place of palpable internal wrestling, where the lyrics – and Forshner’s delivery – map out the grim territories of being overwhelmed, using substances...